Despite being of a scale similar to last year's, the ongoing "shoulder-to-shoulder" military exercises between the United States and the Philippines are more provocative because of the addition of an islands-seizing exercise.

Such military exercises are one of the ways in which the US is militarizing the South China Sea. The military drills organized by the US unilaterally or together with its allies in the South China Sea in recent years have increasingly presented a provocative posture because of their shortened distance to sensitive areas in the sea. The exercise in which Philippine troops recapture islands occupied by "foreign troops" also makes the joint drill more targeted.

The US has frequently sent warplanes and warships on patrol in the South China Sea as part of its attempts to militarize the waters. Under the excuse of "freedom of navigation", in October, the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen made a muscle-flexing sail through the 12-nautical-mile waters around a Chinese isle where reconstruction work was being completed, one of more than 700 patrols the US navy has made in the South China Sea over the past year. Washington has also strengthened its military deployment in the area, such as by signing a series of pacts with the Philippines to allow its vessels to use Philippine ports.